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256 Audio Reviews w/ Response

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Not bad at all

I have to open with a disclaimer - I very rarely listen to this style of music but I think you've done a bang-up job on it. Sounded good on this end. I have no idea how original this is so I'm giving you the benefit of doubt and going with a 10. Diversity will get you an 8 - by it's nature, VG doesn't seem to be an incredibly diverse genre but you did manage to get a nice cross section of timbres in there. Quite clear and effort - well... how can we ever really judge another persons effort right?

Overall you get a 9 and I'm voting 5 - great track - keep it up!

CyrusOfNaias responds:

Thanks, man! I put a total of about 7hrs into it. That's breaking down the days and my schedule that fluctuates like crazy. You can bet your ass that I can still do better, so look forward to it!

Mix,,,

Sounds like you're having the same problem that I am at the moment. I just upgraded a few things and my sound card settings are a little different from what I was used to - it's causing some mastering problems.

OK then - there is a bit of distortion on the percussion - not enough to sound intentional though which leads me to believe that it's a mastering issue. Also sounds like your either sidechaining everything too much OR your dynamics are just getting destroyed by something in there. it ducks a bit too much - Again - it doesn't quite sound intentional. The guitar(ish) synth is a bit loud, it dominates everything else and it sounds a bit too synthetic.

I think it might be a little too far outside of traditional DnB to do well in this genre - I expect a lot of people will wrinkle their noses and say "that's NOT Drum and bass" while giving you a lower score.

Overall, there's not really any one thing that's wrong here - it's just that there are a lot of little things that don't sound right - mostly due to bad mastering. I think that if you went back, adjusted your levels a bit, applied better compression and didn't try to maximize the sound so much it would sound a bit better.

Something on the guitar would be nice - a little reverb or delay - something to help smooth it out a bit more would help it sound more realistic - the attack and release are a little too short - especially the release. I think there should be a softer tail on it. As I mentioned, I think that this instrument dominates the mix but it sounds as if you didn't put a relative amount of effort into getting it to sound just right.

I'm not trying to rip you up here - I'm really trying to help point out problem areas - I do think you did a decent job on it and I'd like to hear some more from you.

As of right now, you've had two 5's and one 0 - I just brought your score up to 3.33 so don't feel too bad about the one zero - that almost always happens when the score is at 5...

I really hope this helps!

ArisingFlame responds:

I want to thank you for the extensive review, it helped a lot! As you said, the problem I find most is mastering. My problem... I don't know how. I somewhat intended the distortion on the precussion, but it doesn't give me that sound I was looking for, and I have no idea what I'm doing on that note.

With the guitars, not knowing quite how to tweak it, it is three different guitars at the same exact nope\pitch\timing... Kinda not the best way to do that. =P

Another big problem pointed out... It's LOUD. For some reason, I end up doing that to all of my songs.

If you could help me on any of these, it would be AMAZING, I really respect you as a fellow (and much better than me) musician and I really enjoyed receiving this review. Thank you!

Damn nice track here

Some great synths in there - sounds like a little bit of bit-crushing. Nice pad. The guitar is a bit synthetic but damn, it's so hard to find a convincing guitar synth... unless it actually IS a real guitar and now I look like a complete noob :D - my money says it's a synth though - oh well aside from breaking out a guitar what can you do right?

I really liked the almost jazzy breakbeat thing you have going on in places. Just enough to wake the beat up a little without going too crazy with it. I actually would have liked "too crazy with it" as well but what you did seems to fit nicely.

Overall a really decent track - a bit on the short side still but that's cool.

Quarl responds:

Hey, thanks for the review, it means alot to me. Yeah, the guitar is synthetic, but I always play my melodies in real time on my computers keyboard, so there's a little bit of realness in there sort of.

AS for the shortness of the track, I actualy just ran out of ideas. I didn't know where to go with the track. I probably could have brought it back around one more time, but...that would have came off as a little repetitive...dunno, maybe I should have spent some more time on it,

Fairly bizarre

I've always been a fan of the warped up and the unexpected - not a bad track here - The only part that I felt needed a little extra attention was the percussion - the actual beat is fine, if a bit relentless, I think you could have gotten better results if you used different samples or timbres and mixed up the beats a little more.

It's certainly an unusual track. More people should take a step away from conventions and push boundaries a little. No progress is made by staying in safe areas. No new ground is covered if we stay on the well travelled roads.

Keep doing your thing -

MrWAD2 responds:

((( LJCoffee )))
----------------
-->THANX FOR THE REVIEW<--

I'm An 'AUDIO ANARCHIST',
I Grew Up In The 70's & 80's When Noise Manipulation Was Truly An ArtForm In ItSelf.
I Handle Making Music As An ArtForm:
I Create Art With Noise, Using DEAD AIR As A BLANK CANVAS.
'GENRES' Don't Matter To Me:
I'm A Fan Of Noise, Which Is Actually The Basis Of All Forms Of Music Though Isn't It?
Composition Must Be Experimented With In Order For Music To Survive.
In Order For Music To Survive It Must Evolve.
As Long As I Have The Means To Enact & Enable MY Creative Notions,
I Will Indeed Do My Part To Ensure
That What The WORLD Knows Of Music
Will Be Tested --- Time & Time Again.
:: Thanks Again For The Review ::

Not bad..

First off - ignore just about everything that I'm about to say as I'm not into techno so really just about everything here is nonsense...

With the disclaimer out of the way:

Patterns may be different but not enough perhaps... I was expecting something more along the lines of a techno - breakcore thing never repeating a percussive bar - either way though it's not bad. It was missing something though - not sure what but it seemed like it could use a little fattening up - maybe a big-ass pad or two would thicken it a bit.

Honestly, I would have given a 4 but it looks as if you've already been 0'd >:( so I'm 5'ing it to try to help out a bit.

Not a bad track at all - just not my style.

I know - I know, worthless review... Oh well :)

Later!

IamMark responds:

That's not worthless Coffee. Hell I have quite a few of your tracks in my playlist. So getting a review from you is pretty sweet.

I went through quite a few different pads, but they all kind of ruined the song. They seemed to take over which is not what I wanted them to do. Kind of like putting pickles in your burger, they make the whole damned thing taste like pickles.

Wheeeee, gleeeee

She told me her favorite color was clear and shiny.

Clubby, happy, dancy, trancy, catchy little feel-good tune buzzing right along.

As I'm sure I've said before, I'm not a great judge of trance as I listen to so very little of it - but all in all a nice little track - worth at least a 2... Maybe a 3 ... Aww hell, I'll give ya teh 5!

Syntrus responds:

Thx coffee man

Loved it.

I just assigned a smattering of 9's and 10's - You'll get a 5 as well.

I'm diggin it though - really liked the mash - percussion was dan fine - Also diggin the diggin the diggin the repeats and the little little twists here an' there.

Sax is always nice - good blend of stuff. I'm also liking the unexpected melodies - great stuff.

snoballandthmonyshot responds:

cheers ler,
think i'm gonna work on this a bit more, get it sounding slick. also picking out more notes on the sax as the days go by so it'll definately be a recuring thang.
go go
;ped

Perfect scores 10/5

I'm sure that you knew I would like this one - and I do.

There is something very appealing about taking more traditional instruments and mashing them up against digital screwage.

The bendification on some of the early plucky bits was simply twitterific.

Then there's the introduction of a downtempo version of a standard marchy techno 2 step that just begs to be blistered up a bit and I'm happy to say that the beats became exactly what I was hoping they would.

This is a damn nice track!

Glib responds:

Thank you. If I get a purrfect score from good ol LJ I know that I'm doing good. :)

Thank you. I didn't want to do anything CRAZY glitchy because it would destroy the electroacousticity of the track. :)

Thank you,

Thomas

Somewhere in the middle

Not too bad - not my favorite though. I'll still give it the 5. Timbres were all decent, drums weren't bad - I can't really put my finger on it but there was something about it that I wasn't crazy about. Very short but that's no big deal really. Sorry I couldn't give you more info...

snoballandthmonyshot responds:

same here, thats why i finished it there, wasn't really mad about it. i've got serious problems at the minute, keep starting all these tunes that are ok but not great so i get bored, can't finish anything, is really starting to grind my gears.
never mind
;ped

The last of it?

But I love the half-arsed shit. This was a cool track - got nothin bad to say about it. The home-grown samples mix well with the instrumentation. Was that a little effected beatboxing in there by any chance? Sounded a bit like it. Great stuff - keepin it at 5.

snoballandthmonyshot responds:

yo,
like i've said b4 about this and my last couple, nothing really wrong with it, it just doesn't tweak my nips like it should

I do all of the above. I mean it. I can back it up too.

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Multiple Many, and how

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